Truck gets moody in its old age

I was driving along in my pickup truck thinking, you know, for an old truck, this thing sure runs well, which caused it to pop a brake line or something because the brake pedal suddenly went right to the floor, giving me a wonderful feeling that I was about to die. Old trucks just can't take a compliment.

Brakes today are required to work even when they're broke so I was able to stop at the next red light by pressing the limp pedal all the way into the floormat. But you definitely get a queasy feeling when your brake pedal abruptly, "got no geeve, bruddah." Suddenly, all the beautiful scenery around you looks very solid and threatening.

Actually, I was kind of expecting something to go wrong with the truck ever since we all had to switch over to the new ethanol-gasoline in order to save the planet. What is it with this bean-sprout fuel? It goes through my truck like goose fat through an aardvark. (If you've never watched goose fat go through an aardvark, trust me, it's fast.) I drove to Waikiki the other day and could actually see my little fuel gauge needle move toward "empty" as I drove.

My suspicions were confirmed after an exhaustive three-minute investigation on the Internet turned up numerous stories about how much faster ethanol gas burns than regular gas. So, when you add ethanol to regular planet-destroying gas, you actually have to refill more often with the bad gas/ethanol mix in order to burn the ethanol, thereby adding more pollutants to the air than if you'd just put regular gas in your vehicle. This is what some people call "irony" and everyone else calls stupid. I think the new gas cocktail made my old truck moody.

As I watched the gas needle move downward and pumped the brakes to see if they'd started working again, I wondered if I had an airbag. All these suddenly scary-looking telephone poles and menacing cars crossing intersections made me hope so. And I wondered if they used the airbag as advertising space. They should. I mean, for the split second that airbag shoots out before it hits you in the face, advertisers have your undivided attention. Your car hits something, the bag inflates and the last thing you see is "Nike!" or "Wheaties!" (Crash! Whoosh! "Visit Las Vegas!" Whump!)

Thankfully, I got the truck to the brake shop without having to find out. The truck looked a little smug as I left it to be worked on. Yes, it's a good old truck, but its attitude needs a little work.